Forged brake lever



- 23 1926. Feb F. scHAEFER 'P oRGED BRAKE LEVER Filed May 18 1925 INVENTOR wrrNEssEs: A

Patented Feb. 23, 1926.

narran sgr-eras FREDERIC scrrnnnnn. or rirfrsnnnen, PENNSYLVANIA.

FORGEI) BRAKE LEVER.

Application led May 18. 1925. Serial No. 30,957.

To all whom @'15 may concern: Y

Be it known that I, Frnmrnro SoHAnrnn, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Pittsburgh, in the county of Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania, have 1nvented a new and useful Improvement in Forged Brake Levers, of which the following is a specification.

The invention relates to brake levers for use in the brake riggings or trucks for railway cars and coaches.

brake lever for this purpose is'customarily pivoted intermediate of its e-nds in a slotted yoke through which it extends, and

it lies in a vertical or downwardly inclined position, having one of its ends attached to a rod which is connected to the brake cylinder mechanism, and its other end connected to a rod for actuating brake beams. If the pivot pin of such a brake lever should break, as it sometimes does, the brake lever Slips downwardly through its slotted yoke, and either it or the rod connected to its lower end falls on a rail and may'cause derailment.

The object of the invention is to provide a forged brake lever of maximum strength in proportion to its weight, and which is so constructed that in case its pivot pin should break, it will not fall downwardly through its slotted yoke and cause derailment; and a forged brake lever, characterized as explained, which may be economically manufactured.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings of which Fig. 1 is a somewhat diagrammatic view illustrating an installation of a brake lever; Fig. 2 a face View of a brake lever provided according to this inventiongand Fig. 3 a central sectional view of a stack of brake levers embodying the invention.

Having reference first to Fig. 1, a railway truck comprising a frame 1 and wheels 2 is shown as having a brake lever 3 pivotally connected by a pin 4: to a slotted yoke 5 through which it extends. The brake lever is indicated as being in al downwardly inclined position, with its upper end pivotally attached to a rod 6 which extends to a brake cylinder, and its lower endV pivotally attached to a rod-7 which is indirectly conj ne-cted to a brake beam.

According to this invention a forged brake lever is provided having flanges 8 and 9, the sides of which lie in common planes, a central web 10, end eyes 11 and 12 for attachment to brake rods, and an intermediate eye 13 for pivotally supporting it. flanges Sand 9 are preferably formed at and adjacent to intermediate eye 13 to conform to the general contour of a uniform stress curve-,thereby reducing to a minimum.

the amount of metal required for the manufacture of the lever.

To prevent a lever from falling through a slotted yoke 5 in case the pivot pin 1 extending through its intermediate eye 13 should break, web 10 of the lever is provided with a concaveeconvex projection 14 adjacent to eye 13, the projection extending beyond the common plane of the end o f boss 15 surrounding the eye and of the sides of flanges 8 and 9. vAs shown in Fig. 1, projection ltis in a position to engage an arm Eof sllgtted yoke 5 1n case pivot pin 4 should gsi-T83. 'Y

The

In the manufacture of forged brake levers Y Y i it is necessary to anneal them after the forging operation, and to do this economically it is desirable to stack the brake levers one upon the other as illustrated in Fig. 3. F ur-` thermore, during the annealing operation it is necessary to support each brakeV lever throughout its entire length to prevent warpage while it is heated. By providing projections 141 which are concave on one side, these projections nest with each other,

A forged lever for railway brakes havingl a central web and flanges formed vintegrally with and at the edges of said web and havstantially the saine thickness as the web, and ing end eyes and an intermediate eye, said the convex side of the projection of one 10 web beingprovided adjacent to said interbrake lever nesting in the concave side of mediate eye with a concave-convex yok-e-ena second brake lever when said second brake gaging projection extending beyond the lever is stacked upon the ilst-nanned brake plane of the sides of the Hanges and of the lever. j

boss surrounding said intermediate eye, the in testimony whereof, I sign iny naine. metal forming said projection being of sub- FREDERIC SCHAEFER. 

